Parma chairman arrested in money-laundering probe

The chairman of beleaguered Serie A soccer club Parma and 21 others have been arrested on charges including embezzlement and money-laundering, Italian police said on Wednesday.

Giampiero Manenti, whose club face a bankruptcy hearing on Thursday, is accused of investing illicit funds, as part of a probe that has led to dozens of raids across the country.

A police source said the public accounts department of Italy's Treasury was among the sites raided. The Treasury was not immediately available for comment.

Prosecutor Michele Prestipino Giarrita said the case related to a group of suspected information fraudsters and money- launderers who had moved millions of euros from a Swiss bank using cloned credit cards.

The suspicion is that the group "made available to Manenti a sum of around 4.5 million euros ($4.78 million) through a system which you could call banal but was certainly simple", Prestipino told a news conference in Rome.

A new law passed last year that defined a crime of investing ill-gotten gains in other business concerns -- known as "autoriciclaggio" -- has been used for the first time in this case, Prestipino said.

Parma's players have not been paid all season and have to do their own laundry and drive their own team bus. Manenti failed to fulfil a promise to pay them by mid-February.

"This is turning into a farce," club captain Alessandro Lucarelli was quoted as saying by La Gazzetta dello Sport. "I want to understand the legal reasons (behind the arrests), whether Parma is involved or not."

The club issued a statement later on Wednesday.

"Following recent legal events", it would be represented by members of its board of auditors at Thursday's hearing," the statement said.

Board member Osvaldo Riccobene met staff on Wednesday to explain the club's situation and will meet the first team and technical staff on Thursday, Parma added. ($1 = 0.9423 euros)